Let me start by saying that I am not claiming to be an expert when it comes to blogging. My weblog doesn’t get the kind of traffic that Steve Pavlina might get on a daily basis. I do get between 200-250 hits per day and I am earning a little money with Google Adsense and the sales of my books. I have also noticed that my earnings are doubling about every six months. The first year I was lucky to make a dollar or two per month. The second year I was making closer to five dollars per month. During the month of November (even though my stats were dropping) I made around twenty dollars. December was a little slow because I Didn’t write in November but January is shaping up to be a rather nice month.
I have made many mistakes when it comes to my weblog. The first of which is not writing consistently. This past November is a good example. I basically took the entire moth of November off from blogging so I could focus on my NaNoWriMo novel. When I checked my stats in the beginning of December, my numbers had dropped pretty significantly. It took me about a month to get them somewhat back to normal.
The following are some of the things that I have found that you should do when it comes to blogging.
Get your own domain name – Having your own domain Name will make working with other sites like Google Adsense and PayPerPost.com a whole lot easier. The last thing you want to do is start blogging on blogger.com or wordpress.com
Find a quality hosting service – Preferably that already has the blogging software available. There are a lot of services out there. Just shop around. I am not going to refer you to one, mostly because I want you to know that I am not getting anything out of giving you this information.
Make sure the title of your post ends up in the URL – This will make it easier for Google to find your blog post and will most likely move you up on the search results.
Use tags – This is another thing you can do to better your rating with Google. It should move your site further forward in the search results.
Be descriptive – Write as much as you can. Just because you understand what you are saying doesn’t mean you are making any sense to anyone else who might be reading this.
Write quality not quantity – I suggest that you don’t post everyday. Absolutely write everyday; just make sure you polish each post with as much quality content as you can muster. The more you have to say (that is not just filler), the more people will want to return to read more.
Join Google Adsense – Google Adsense is a great way to earn a little extra cash without doing a whole lot. Set it up to post on every page. When someone is interested in clicking on the links, they will. Don’t click on them yourself. They can track that and will cancel your account. I learned that the hard way.
PayPerPost.com – This site is not for everyone. They pay you well if you can follow directions. They will only pay you (there might be a few exceptions) if you have your own domain. They don’t like mass blogging sites. I would suggest that you tailor the writing for these advertisers to fit the content of what the rest of your weblog is about. People don’t like to read a lot of advertisements.
There is so much more to say, and as I find the time, I will continue to add to this post.
